Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse
A Tangled Web we Weave
Ten
Using a set of high powered binoculars, Kraven the Hunter watched Spider-man fight a group of gang bangers. The boy leaped about the alley gracefully, easily dodging bullets as he punched and kicked the punks.
Kraven had fought the original Spider-man several times, and felt he was a pretty good judge of his abilities. Now, watching the new one, he suspected the boy might even be slightly faster than the original, and nearly as strong.
Spider-man touched one goon, and the man stiffened and dropped.
'Ah, his venom blast,' Kraven mused.
THAT, he suspected, was going to be a problem when fighting the kid. He seemed to be able to zap anyone unconscious, as long as he could touch them. And the boy was fast and agile enough to be able to get in close enough to anyone...
'Wonder if body armor might protect you?' Kraven mused as he watched the kid web up the group, then swing off.
"Kraven, what's the status on Spider-Man?" Caterina asked, talking to him through a scrambled radio headset.
"He's caught another group of Tombstone's goons, over on 5th," Kraven told her. "Heading off on his usual patrol."
(They had observed the kid long enough to mostly get his patrol route down. He did vary it somewhat, though...)
"Understood. Stay out of sight, we don't want Spider-man seeing you," Caterina noted.
"We should just jump him," Kraven argued.
"Mr Fisk doesn't want that. Yet," Caterina answered calmly.
"I'll maintain the tail," Kraven answered.
With a annoyed sigh Kraven returned to watching, even as he carefully maintained his distance. They weren't sure how close to Spider-man you needed to get to trigger his danger sense, and he didn't want to trip it accidentally.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Hello, everyone!" Liv Octavius breezed in cheerfully, her hair a frizzy mess as usual, wearing a blouse, long skirt and carrying a shoulder bag.
"Morning Miss Octavius!" several kids replied.
"All right, as you all know the school is doing a special event for the public," Liv said briskly, "and they want students to submit projects."
There was an excited murmur from the students.
"If you need assistance, I'm sure staff will help," Liv added.
"Are there any forbidden topics?" Cindy raised a hand to ask.
"Funny you should ask that," Liv said cheerfully, "no nuclear experiments. Apparently that happened a few years back and SHIELD got involved..."
"Or super soldier experiments," Miles noted.
"Hmm," Liv nodded.
"Or Gamma bomb tech," Ned Leeds offered.
"And that," Liv agreed.
"Basically, no really FUN ideas," one student quipped.
"No mad science, pretty much," Liv chuckled.
"Well, we could collaborate on something," Miles suggested to Ned and Cindy.
"What would you want to do?" Cindy asked. "I was thinking something in robots."
"Oooh, nice. Robot octopus?" Ned teased.
"Do you WANT Ms Octavius to kick your ass?" Miles noted.
"Point," Ned admitted.
"Spider-bot? Maybe one we could remote control?" Cindy suggested.
"It's too bad the school wouldn't pay for the materials to build an Iron Man exoframe," Ned suggested with a sigh.
"Just the materials alone would be insane," Miles nodded. "I read somewhere that even the earliest versions of Stark's suits were as costly as a fighter jet."
"Does make you wonder what you could do if you owned a tech junkyard or something," one of their classmates noted.
"Oh, hey Riri," Cindy nodded to Riri Williams, another of their classmates.
(All three would be astonished several weeks later when Riri would unveil a 'Iron Heart' armored suit. But that's another thing.)
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"So we have Prowler II, Scorpion, Electro, Kraven, Beetle and Doctor Octopus II," Rhona Burchill noted. She beamed, "We need a team name!"
"Seriously?" Beetle said dryly.
"Like the Six!" Rhona added.
"Didn't Green Goblin call his group that? And didn't he DIE?" Scorpion pointed out.
"Point," Rhona admitted.
Rhona, by the way, was equipped in a modified version of the Doctor Octopus rig. Like Liv, she had the four artificial, modular tentacles, unlike the original, she had used a flexible, metal design. She wanted the arms to be tougher, AND to have crushing power.
The three were in Rhona's lab at Alchemax, as she was modifying Beetle's armor. The suit needed repairs that Leila Davis couldn't do on her own. AND, of course, Rhona was installing a kill switch, in case Fisk wanted her stopped.
"When are we hunting Spider-man?" Leila asked flatly.
"When the boss says it's time," Rhona replied. "For all I know, he may send us out to take out Prowler, first."
"Tombstone's causing problems?" Scorpion asked, interested.
"Getting a bit too big for his position," Rhona said dryly. "Plus, the Spider-kid is out hunting him too. It's interfering with Mr Fisk's other operations."
"So we beat Tombstone, hand him over to the cops, and Spider-Man backs off," Leila noted.
"Huh. Boring," Scorpion bitched.
"Well, if the Spider keeps being a pain we'd kill him too," Rhona added, clearly not at all bothered by the idea. Then again, she HAD killed her own brother and grafted his brain matter onto her's for added computing power...
"I want to pay that little runt back," Scorpion added.
Rhona finished her work, closing up the back hatches of the Beetle armor. "Leila, try it on," she said, "we may need to adjust the fit."
Leila calmly pulled her shirt off, then dropped her trousers, leaving herself nude.
"Eeep," Scorpion turned around, flushing.
Leila calmly climbed in, then pulled the armor shut around her. "Hmm," she took a moment, "fits fine."
"Next time, put up a privacy curtain or something," Rhona suggested.
"Why?" Leila said casually.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"A date?" Liv asked, smiling happily.
May Parker smiled back, "Yes, I heard about an interesting club we could go to."
They were sitting at May's kitchen table, the late afternoon sun lighting the room. "Though we can just stay in if you want," Liv covered May's hand with her own.
May blushed a little, "No, I want to take you out, too. You paid for dinner last time."
"All right, all right," Liv conceded.
Not long after both headed into the city, then to the slightly seedy docks. Liv looked around warily, but May walked confidently, then came around a corner only to see a crowd of women. They were in line to enter a nightclub...
"No men?" Liv checked.
"Nope," May smirked. She mused, "I was surprised to find it, honestly. I thought this sort of club was going away."
"Huh," Liv nodded, noting the neon sign, 'Arisugawa's Locket.'
The line moved fairly quickly, and they soon were inside. A lady in a sleek business suit was greeting people as they entered. "Tendo Nabiki," she smiled, "welcome to the Locket. First time here?"
"Yes," May smiled. "This place is impressive."
"Well, we have tables for meals there," Nabiki pointed, "there's the bar and dance floor. And if you feel like it, we have a small library too."
"Library?" Liv blinked.
"You also can rent rooms upstairs, for... whatever," Nabiki chuckled as they went in.
"Ack," May was blushing slightly as Liv chuckled.
"Come on, let's get a drink," Liv decided, the two heading up to the bar.
Ultimates
Tony Stark drank like a fish, even when they were all sitting in the Ultimates base.
Mind you, it wasn't that shocking. Them man had a brain tumor (thankfully in remission) and was in constant pain. Staying sloshed kept the pain under control.
"We fell down on the job with Wilson Fisk," Tony noted flatly.
Steve Rogers, Captain America, nodded as he said, "We should have ignored SHIELD orders and went in earlier."
Hawkete shook his head, "We didn't know things had gotten to that point. And the local cops would have screamed bloody murder over us taking over."
"We knew they were using supers," Steve pointed out.
"So is every major gang lord, these days," Wasp pointed out mildly. "And using bootleg, knock-off Iron Tech."
Tony grunted in annoyance. While the latest tech for his Irom Man suits was still top secret, some of his earlier designs had leaked. He had (of course) fired the staff that leaked it, but the damage was already done.
"If only the government would let us operate more stateside!" Steve complained.
Bluntly the Ultimates were so powerful, there was a lot of resistance to them acting inside the US. And even though they were no longer directly controlled by SHIELD, they felt a need to respect the President's wishes. It all went back to the second time Hulk rampaged. A depressed Bruce Banner had injected himself with Steve's blood, and had gone bezerk. The Ultimates had stopped him, but the damage had been catastrophic...
So, a ban on operating in the US was put in place. Mind you they bent the rules every now and then... covertly.
"And you have to admit, the guys reported to be active in New York aren't THAT big a threat," Hawkeye added.
"Green Goblin, with how he's mutating bigger and bigger, is a Hulk waiting to happen," Tony pointed out.
"Isn't he dead?" Steve blinked.
"His biology is weird," Wasp noted, drawing on her training as a biologist, "he apparently goes into a death-like state and regenerates."
"Damn," Steve muttered.
"Carol Danvers is keeping a close eye on it," Hawkeye added, knowing the head spook from his SHIELD days. "She knows to call us if the shit hits the fan again."
"Like they did last time?" Tony noted drolly.
No one could really answer that...
To be continued...
Notes:
I have mixed feelings on the Ultimate universe. On one hand, I DO like the whole 'added realism' thing and I find in general it's interesting. On the other hand, MOST of the canon characters are pretty much assholes. So, there's that...